For leaders, the vision may include inspiring managers to adopt a coach mentoring style in their everyday conversations with all colleagues, including peers, direct reports and their own line manager.
For HR or learning and development specialists, the role may be to design an in-house programme to support this vision. For managers, it may be a case of investing in personal development and using this as a guide to what coach mentoring offers as a way of working.
Whatever the perspective, how can we support managers in understanding how their personal attributes – “who we are” – have an impact on their endeavours to adopt a coach mentoring style?
Beliefs and attitudes
The beliefs and attitudes competency, when included as part of a coach mentoring training intervention, should be viewed from the perspective of both the organisation and the manager.
The standards for this EMCC competency include “demonstrating belief in helping others to develop”.
Organisationally, this approach may be espoused in performance management training and be a regular question in learning and development discussions.
To validate whether the leadership of the organisation holds this belief, ask the following:
- What emphasis is placed on people development?
- Where does learning and development appear in the business strategy and what resources are made available for it?
With positive responses to these questions, managers are able to manage their own and their direct reports’ expectations in relation to development opportunities. In addition, any coach mentoring learning activity will have more chance of succeeding when it is supported by the leadership of the organisation.
Even with this type of support:
- How does this competency statement relate to managers themselves?
- What evidence is there, for example, anecdotally or through appraisal surveys, to demonstrate that managers hold this belief?
- How can this attribute be observed in managers?
Managers may feel they are too busy with their own role to invest time in others.
To be competent in adopting a coach mentoring style, managers can be encouraged to self-assess, engage in 360-degree feedback or be asked in a selection discussion for coach mentoring training to provide examples of how they view their personal role and what they have done to help others to develop. Only then can they enter into the training confident that they have the personal attributes of wanting to support others’ development.
A full copy of the EMCC competency framework and standards is available at www.emccouncil.org
Lise Lewis is an author of the EMCC competency framework and standards. She is an EMCC European Quality Award assessor and chair of the UK Standards Committee. She also designs and delivers manager-as-coach and internal coach training programmes and is a trained supervisor.
This is the last competency column. Next issue, our column offering practical help for line managers coaching their own staff resumes.
Volume 3, Issue 6